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From Newsarama:
Fans of artist Ethan Van Sciver’s work on New X-Men best savor this month’s issue #133, because not only will it be Van Sciver’s last X-Men for a while, it will likely be his last work for Marvel for some time.
As reported by Diamond Distributors, Van Sciver is no longer attached to next month’s New X-Men #134, an issue he was originally solicited to draw. Instead, penciler Keron Grant will provide the interiors. And while Frank Quitely is already scheduled to draw and four-issue story arc beginning with December’s issue #135, and Phil Jimenez likely to follow with an story arc afterwards, nevertheless, Van Sciver is now removed from the X-Men mix. The artist reports while he drew six-pages of issue #134, he thinks that those pages “probably won't been seen” and that he and Marvel has “severed” their working relationship…
“I was hired on an exclusive basis a year and few months ago to complete the gap between Frank Quitely's issues of New X-Men, which I thought would be a reasonable task,” explained the artist. “My contract asked that I do a certain number of issues per year, considering that my usual rate of work delivery at DC comics was about one book every two months (do the math!). I've found that as I matured as an artist, I ask more of myself than I used to, and the fact is that I only produced six books for Marvel over the course of 15 months.
“Quality means more to me than quantity, and I try my best to do books that I and the company I work for are proud to print and release to fans. So I tried to get a Phoenix mini-series going with Marvel, which I thought would be a better place for me to be. That didn't work out for a number of reasons. This was clearly the wrong situation for both Marvel and myself at the wrong time.”
Asked for comment on the matter, X-Men editor Mike Marts replied, "We're extremely excited about the roster of talent that's lining up to work on the X-titles right now: Frank Quitely, Phil Jimenez, Keron Grant, Ron Garney and Kia Asamiya!"
[On a curious footnote, this week Diamond reported that New X-Men #134, which as noted will ship with a different artist as solicited, will be returnable, indicating Marvel may now be make products returnable on a regular basis, and that their large returnable list from last month was not just a one-time anomaly].
“At the end of the day, I'm pleased with the books I did for Marvel, many of which are being reprinted multiple times, and working with Grant Morrison was a pleasure,” Van Sciver concluded. “But DC Comics has always been more comfortable for me. I love all of the characters, I love being able to choose who I work with, and I love the freedom. I'm planning a series of prestige format projects with them at the moment, and I'm very happy that things worked out the way they did!”
Van Sciver preferred to let DC announce his upcoming projects, but he did say he’s already working on his next three books and that he and Geoff Johns are “talking” about a possible The Flash: Iron Heights sequel.
Okay. So it's Frank and Phil. And Keron Grant?
A sample of Keron's art.
Another sample.
Another sample.
I've got mixed feelings about this guy - he's not awful, but he doesn't seem right for NXM at all. Why not hire John Paul Leon as artist #3? |
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In my defence, there's a hell of a lot of similarity between Fisher's art and the stuff on that site. And Fisher used to be part of it. And I didn't read the thing I got the link from properly. And I'm easily confused. And... erm... *runs* 
